Zitat des Tages von Adora Svitak:
I need to be allowed to make my own decisions and mistakes, take leaps - and fall - without receiving too much help, because it's what I'll be doing for the rest of my life.
A lot of negative words adults call the young, like 'naive,' 'impulsive' and 'way too connected online,' are all things we can turn into strengths to help us.
I think that my peers deserve more than products to buy wrapped up in advertising. We need ideas to share and causes to believe in - opportunities to lead and teach.
We all love people who give credit to others for their success. Companies would probably do better with CEOs who didn't blow their own horn and ask for ridiculous salaries and new yachts every year.
I am writing to make sure that kids don't lose very important traits like curiosity that can drive social change because oftentimes I think parents emphasise more on doing well in school, which is important, but perhaps that sometimes comes at the cost of a child's natural curiosity.
Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth voice to raising awareness about world hunger.
The point of my work is to make it clear that all youth can make 'big miracles' happen.
Young people are often asked, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' and given advice about how to lead meaningful adult lives, but where's the encouragement to lead meaningful lives right now?
To try to teach ignoring technology is to ignore the progress that we have made over the last century. If school is preparation for the real world - a real world that is increasingly technology-driven - then to ignore technology is to become obsolete.
I realise I'm still a child, though I do feel older. I recently did an on-line test called 'What's Your True Age?' My result was 50-60 years old.
If I had my way, I'd end all wars and poverty. We should all be more aware of what's going on in the world around us and less ignorant.
Enthusiasm just creates bubbles; it doesn't keep them from popping.
Prom has all the elements of a popular story. It reeks of all-Americanness, tension, drama. It has romance. Pretty dresses. Dancing. Limos. High school. Coming of age.
We always reference kids but very rarely ask their opinion. Our inexperience might be what gives us the ability to teach our elders something, due to the fact that we are not jaded or cynical.
I think women should be more independent. In society, we're portrayed as people who simply wear make-up and sit around. We need a Princess Charming - a woman who rescues her man and slays the dragon instead of the other way round.
The first thing anyone can do, about any issue, is get informed.
Mostly, I avoid worrying since the time spent doing it could be spent more constructively.
Ineffective substitute teaching is a problem that means thousands of hours of lost learning for America's students. It cannot be dismissed with a sigh and 'Just wait for the teacher to come back on Monday.'
My parents homeschooled my sister and me for many years. Why? Because the local school insisted that I, being three, should go to preschool, and my sister, being five, should go to kindergarten. The problem? You learn your alphabet in preschool, and I was already reading chapter books.
I was thrilled to be able to read at three. I just thought everyone loved reading as much as I did.
I wouldn't call myself a geek, but I do sometimes teach Mommy and Daddy stuff about computers. And I do watch TV, but only informative programmes like the news and documentaries.
If we all understood we can learn from both older and younger people, then we'd have a better world.
The idea there were kids out there who didn't love to read and write just as much as I did struck me. So I went around schools and tried to make other kids love to read and write.
Hoping to instill my love of learning in other children, I taught my first class at a local elementary school the year my first book, 'Flying Fingers,' debuted; since then, I have spoken at hundreds of schools, classrooms and conferences around the world.
I would say that kids are great in many ways, because I think that we are less hampered when it comes to 'this costs too much' or 'that's impossible'.
By bringing current events into the classroom, everyday discussion, and social media, maybe we don't need to wait for our grandchildren's questions to remind us we should have paid more attention to current events.
